Protective clothing of many types is now well-known for many and varied uses in protecting people from fire and harmful substances, such as suits for industrial workers, flame- and fire-resistant suits for firemen, forest fire fighters, race car drivers and airplane pilots, and suits for use by military personnel. Garments include not only complete, hermetic suits, but also individual garments such as trousers, jackets, gloves, boots, hats, head coverings, masks, etc.
Regulations restricting exposure to hazardous environments of various kinds, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act, make it increasingly necessary to have better and more effective kinds of protective garments.
Such garments presently available are almost invariably of thick construction and heavy in weight, and are often fabricated at least in part from materials impermeable to water or water vapor, such as natural and synthetic rubbers and elastomers, chlorinated rubbers, etc. In the case of garments impermeable to water vapor, there is considerable discomfort to those wearing them, especially when the garments are of the hermetic variety, because of the entrapment of perspiration and body heat. Entrapment of heat and perspiration results in considerable discomfort of itself, and the heat stress which results from the prevention of loss of heat by the ordinary mechanism of evaporation of perspiration can rapidly reach a dangerous stage of heat prostration for the person wearing the garment.
It is an object of this invention to provide improved protective garments which possess the ability to permit the passage of water vapor through the fabric of the garment, and thereby provide improved comfort for the person wearing the garment.
It is another object of this invention to provide improved protective garments which possess not only the ability to permit the passage of water vapor through the fabric, but also the ability to act as a stable barrier to the passage of most organic substances, including toxic compounds, through the fabric. Such garments could protect those exposed to a wide variety of organic or harmful compounds.
It is a further object to provide such garments which are thin and light weight and which thus will more readily permit loss of heat by virtue of their light weight construction.